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Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

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Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#211

Post by zooq_ai »

arnaudsm wrote: post #186

I understand the AI context, but this is dangerously anticompetitive for other search engines. This is a dangerous precedent for the internet. Business conglomerates have been controlling most of the web, but refusing basic interoperability is even worse.

There is nothing preventing search companies paying the same $60 Million to license content.

If reddit had exclusive agreement, it would be anti-competive.

This is classic HN anti-Google tirade (and downvoting facts, logic and concepts of free market)

Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#212

Post by pluc »

zooq_ai wrote: post #211
arnaudsm wrote: post #186

I understand the AI context, but this is dangerously anticompetitive for other search engines. This is a dangerous precedent for the internet. Business conglomerates have been controlling most of the web, but refusing basic interoperability is even worse.

There is nothing preventing search companies paying the same $60 Million to license content. If reddit had exclusive agreement, it would be anti-competive. This is classic HN anti-Google tirade (and downvoting facts, logic and concepts of free market)

Paying 60 million to every site you want to index is also a bad precedent to set. Why can Reddit get paid and XYZ can't?

Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#214

Post by zooq_ai »

pluc wrote: post #212
zooq_ai wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing preventing search companies paying the same $60 Million to license content. If reddit had exclusive agreement, it would be anti-competive. This is classic HN anti-Google tirade (and downvoting facts, logic and concepts of free market)

Paying 60 million to every site you want to index is also a bad precedent to set. Why can Reddit get paid and XYZ can't?

Anyone can ask for licensing deal. I'm sure NY Times, Conde Nest all have licensing deals. Mr. Beast signed a deal with Amazon. Joe Rogan with Spotify. Why is it hard to understand?

Even HN can get a licensing deal if they want to.

If you are producing content, you have every right to do what you want to with the content.

Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#215

Post by Yawrehto »

Suppafly wrote: post #137
bdw5204 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strange thing to me is how everybody keeps trying to make distributed Twitter happen when distributed Reddit is the low hanging fruit for federated social media. You don't want to end up banned from a movies forum because you also participate in a political forum. Federation solves that problem because you can use separate accounts without either forum knowing that you also use the other.

>The strange thing to me is how everybody keeps trying to make distributed Twitter happen when distributed Reddit is the low hanging fruit for federated social media. Honestly, it's strange to me how hard people are trying to make distributed anything happen. Federation mostly solves a problem that real people don't have or care about.

>Honestly, it's strange to me how hard people are trying to make distributed anything happen.

IMO, something federation is very good at is solving one slow-moving problem - enshittification of social platforms. It's not immune, of course, but an Elon Musk-style takeover is much harder with Mastodon than Twitter, and it would be hard to run it into the ground in other ways because the platforms are owned by different people and groups.

Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#216

Post by asadotzler »

em-bee wrote: post #83
semiquaver wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what is the antitrust concern about Reddit blocking crawlers that aren’t paying them? Surely you don’t think Reddit has a monopoly on anything? Or are you somehow suggesting that it’s google’s fault that Reddit took this step? I don’t see any indication that’s the case.

not that reddit has a monopoly, but that google has. google is using their power to prevent others from competing. the problem here is of course that if reddit would be in financial trouble (i don't know if they are but let's imagine they need this money), they'd be between a rock and a hard place. google should not be allowed to make exclusive deals, and reddit could not survive without the deal, then what would be…

> let's assume firefox is forced to allow people to make a choice of the default search engine

Firefox has always allowed people to make a choice of the default search engine, since before it was even called Firefox. I know. I was there building it.

Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#217

Post by r_singh »

Thinking from reddits perspective they have nothing to lose really. It’s not like other search engines are going to pay any attention to the robots txt and Google’s AI would have still scraped data from Reddit regardless of the deal. Now they will just feel less bad about not citing sources possibly, depending on the user experience they want to deliver.

Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#218

Post by spixy »

pluc wrote: post #212
zooq_ai wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing preventing search companies paying the same $60 Million to license content. If reddit had exclusive agreement, it would be anti-competive. This is classic HN anti-Google tirade (and downvoting facts, logic and concepts of free market)

Paying 60 million to every site you want to index is also a bad precedent to set. Why can Reddit get paid and XYZ can't?

maybe Reddit has more value than XYZ?

Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#219

Post by renlo »

jpalomaki wrote: post #203
StrauXX wrote: post #164

IANAL but as far as I understand the current legal status (in the US) a change in robots.txt or terms and conditions is not binding for web scrapers since the data is publicly accessible. Neither does displaying a banner "By using this site you accept our terms and conditions" change anything about that. The only thing that can make these kinds of terms binding is if the data is only accessible after proactively acce…

Quite sure they are also enforcing these with some technical measures to limit scraping.

As was LinkedIn, who was forced to rate stop limiting / IP-banning scrapers for public pages.

Re: Google is the only search engine that works on Reddit now, thanks to AI deal

#220

Post by em-bee »

asadotzler wrote: post #216
em-bee wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not that reddit has a monopoly, but that google has. google is using their power to prevent others from competing. the problem here is of course that if reddit would be in financial trouble (i don't know if they are but let's imagine they need this money), they'd be between a rock and a hard place. google should not be allowed to make exclusive deals, and reddit could not survive without the deal, then what would be…

> let's assume firefox is forced to allow people to make a choice of the default search engine Firefox has always allowed people to make a choice of the default search engine, since before it was even called Firefox. I know. I was there building it.

yes, but the default is google, and you have to go into the settings to make a choice, so most people keep the default. what i meant was the EU directive for microsoft where they actually had to put up a prompt at first use asking the user which browser they want, without allowing any default (and, i am not sure, maybe even a randomized list)

if the same was done for search engine choice for firefox then google would no longer be the default, and they would have no reason to pay firefox for that.

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